How to Find Your Prince: An Introductory Course
by Queen of the Castle
Summary: Little bandit rodents were making fun of her. This was so unfair. Today was really not Rose's best day ever. Ren/Ten, Rose/Prince Charming


Author's Notes: Goes AU at the end of Season 4. If it's possible for a crossover between Doctor Who and assorted fairytales to be anything other than a parody, I'm obviously not the one to write it. There are a number of random fairytale and Disney references in here.

* * *

><p>This, Rose thought, might actually have been weirder than that one reality where she'd found a version of the Doctor who was a free-love-promoting hippy clearly a little bit too well-baked to do more than be fascinated by the sight of his own hand moving in front of his face.<p>

She waved her own hand in front of her face, wondering if _she'd_ accidentally inhaled some potent smoke or powder or something without realising it.

That was the only way she could explain how she was suddenly a cartoon, just like the world that surrounded her.

Well, clearly this wasn't the reality she'd been aiming for. She went to punch the button to call for another jump with the Dimension Cannon, only to find that she was a second too late.

Now, there were a lot of reasons that Rose would be happy to stay in a universe for a while. Someone might need her help to prevent some great catastrophe (or distract invading aliens, since she was very good at that and therefore much in demand). Or she might have to explore a little to find out whether she had finally landed in the right universe, if it looked similar enough to the place she'd grown up. Heck, she'd even pause to help an old lady across the street without complaint if necessary. _This_, though, was completely unacceptable.

Her device had been stolen right from off her wrist by squirrels.

_Squirrels_.

Rose snatched at them, but the three little critters ducked and dodged easily beyond her grasp. They laughed among themselves at the sight of her.

Little bandit rodents were making fun of her. This was so unfair. Today was really not Rose's best day ever.

The squirrels took off into the relative safety (for them at least) of what looked like a massive forest.

"Oi, come back here!" she cried after them. The silence that answered her was a kind of mockery little better than the squeaky little squirrel laughs the creatures had aimed at her.

"I _told_ Mickey that he should have let me have a back-up device," Rose muttered aloud. "But no, he needed to keep both spares for 'security reasons'. I bet he's off usin' them to take some girl joy-hoppin' around time and space while I'm stuck down the rabbit hole."

"Despite her best efforts," a voice that appeared to come from nowhere announced, "it did indeed appear that the beautiful stranger was out of options."

"Who's there?" Rose called. There was no answer, and no noise at all except for the wind rustling the leaves and the constant sound of cicadas. Great, Rose thought, on top of everything she was now imagining things. She had to get out of this place before she really cracked up. Unfortunately, there was only one way out, and it was currently the plaything of some deceptively malicious forest creatures.

Rose sighed and looked into the darkness beyond the trees with a sense of inevitability.

"And so our heroine decided to set out across the forest in search of her magical device."

Rose frowned, turning in a circle. It was that disembodied voice again. "Sorry, what? You talkin' to me? Oh, hang on... Are you _narratin'_ me?"

"Little did she know what awaited her."

"Oi, stop that!"

Thankfully, the voice did stop then. Less fortunately, she was left with little option other than to do what it had suggested.

The forest better not be as big as it looked; that was all she was saying.

* * *

><p>Apparently the forest did end eventually, though she wished she could have found the stupid squirrels long before reaching the edge of the tree line.<p>

She was very glad to see what looked like some kind of pub in the clearing, though. After all that walking, not to mention what had happened in the last universe she'd landed herself in before this one, Rose was more than a little tired and dehydrated. A sit-down and a drink would be very welcome. Maybe someone inside could even help her out with her search.

All of the noise in the pub stopped abruptly as the room full of men turned and looked at her.

"Huh," Rose said. "Vikings. _Loads_ of angry Vikings. Interestin'."

Twenty or thirty mouths opened into menacing smiles and grimaces, revealing rotting teeth.

Rose decided that, actually, she didn't need a drink _that_ badly.

"Nice meetin' you all," Rose announced, then shut the pub door in their faces and high-tailed it back into the trees.

* * *

><p>"Here, squirrels, squirrels!" Rose called out entreatingly, having long since run out of better options. "Nice squirrels. You know you wanna give me back what's mine."<p>

Unsurprisingly, the animals didn't suddenly materialise. It was far more unexpected that an old hunch-backed woman suddenly staggered into her line of sight, coming closer and closer to Rose.

"Hey there!" Rose called out. "I dunno if this'll seem like as weird a question to you as it does to me, considerin' you live in this mad place and all, but you haven't by any chance seen three laughin' squirrels hereabouts, have you?"

The woman ignored her question in favour of holding out a basket. "Sustenance for your long travels," she offered in a rasping voice.

Rose hesitantly peered into the offered basket and then burst out laughing. "Shiny red apples?" Rose asked, incredulous. "You're kiddin' me. Look, lady, I'm onto you. I'm not stupid. I got the bedtime stories, watched the Disney flicks, and even had these little pop-up books that stopped poppin' properly after about the third go-through. You can take your not-so-secretly-poisoned apples and go peddle them on some other unsuspectin' girl roamin' the forest. Be seein' you. Or not, hopefully."

Rose stalked off, leaving the old woman behind staring after her as if _she_ was the crazy one in this place.

"Poison apples," Rose muttered to herself. "Honestly. What's wrong with these people?"

Unfortunately, though, just the sight of real food, juicy and appetising, had promptly reminded her stomach just how empty it was. It rumbled threateningly at her.

It was just as well that she had to search the trees for the squirrels. She'd probably never have found a convenient pear tree so quickly otherwise.

Rose bit into one of the pears gratefully.

Her stomach didn't even have time to be satisfied at finally getting some food.

Rose fell unconscious too quickly.

* * *

><p>Rose woke up to find herself being thoroughly snogged.<p>

"Mmmph!.. Mmm."

Not that she was really complaining or anything. She let herself be pulled more firmly into the wonderfully thorough kiss for a good long while before pulling away.

The first thing she saw was a very pretty (something in her brain that sounded decidedly like the Doctor thought perhaps _too_ pretty) face. The second was a crown.

She'd just been kissed awake by a handsome prince. That idea was disturbingly familiar to her.

"Ugh, seriously?" Rose said. "All right, I get it. Poison pears, not apples. Stupid stories, gettin' the details wrong. Shoulda listened when the Doctor told me how disgustin' pears are. I'm never eatin' another one as long as I'm alive. 'Course, that's what I keep sayin' about drinkin' alcohol as well, and look how that always turns out. I think I should probably go back and apologise to that old lady, all things considered. No wonder she thought I was nuts. There was probably nothin' wrong with those apples of hers."

"Excuse me?" the Prince said, seeming very confused.

"How'd you even know I was out here, anyways?" Rose asked. "What, did someone see some girl passed out and figure they should ring it in on the Prince Hotline or somethin'?"

The Prince bristled and changed his stance in an attempt to make himself look taller and more impressive. "Maybe. What's wrong with that?"

Rose gaped. "No way. There's a _Prince Hotline_ here?"

"Three, actually. There's a lot of demand for princes, you see. I'm Prince Charming, at your service and glad to be of assistance." He gave her a sweeping bow.

"Prince _Charmin'_," Rose said with a laugh. "How full of yourself are you? You know, I have this friend who calls himself the Oncomin' Storm sometimes. I thought that was bad enough."

"It's a perfectly good name, befitting a strong and handsome prince," he said. The Prince looked very offended that she wasn't swooning at his feet after that kiss.

"Seriously, though, that can't be your real name. I mean, aliens goin' 'round callin' themselves 'the Doctor' is one thing, but there's no way anyone actually names their kid Charmin', even in crazy upside-down fairytale-land. No offence, your worshipfulness, but prince or not, with a name like that you'd be kicked 'round the playground so hard that you'd end up sentencin' _yourself_ to be exiled from the kingdom."

"I did go by a different name when I was younger, yes," the Prince admitted.

"Yeah? What was that?"

The Prince looked suddenly very uncomfortable, which was unexpected given how cocky he'd acted up until then. He mumbled something that Rose didn't quite catch.

"Huh?" Rose asked.

"Bob," the Prince repeated a little more loudly, looking thoroughly embarrassed.

Rose's mouth silently formed the word, as if mulling it over. "What, for real? Prince Bob?"

"Well, I wasn't a prince at the time," the Prince said. He ran a hand through his hair in a way that reminded Rose uncomfortably of the Doctor, though the Prince appeared to be making sure his hair was perfectly in place instead of further messing it up. "I mean, I had to study for five years at the Prince Academy first, obviously, and then there was that whole slaying a dragon business... After going through all of that, you can see why I might want to change my name to something more fitting of my accomplishments, can't you?"

Rose shook her head. "Wow. You're incredibly up yourself, aren't you? I can't believe that _you're_ the guy I spent my childhood dreamin' of. You know, if my Mum met you, I bet she'd say that this explains a lot about how I grew up to fall in love with someone like the Doctor. His ego is actually pretty tame by comparison."

"Wait, where are you going?" the Prince called after her as she pulled herself up and started walking away from him. "I kissed you out of your eternal sleep. I took the 'How to Find Your Princess' introductory course at the Academy. I know that's a sure sign that you're supposed to come back to my palace and marry me and live happily ever after with me."

"Yeah," Rose replied, turning back to look at him, "no offence or anythin', but I don't think so. Even if I thought I could happily stand spendin' the next week with you, let alone 'ever after', I already promised someone forever. I've really gotta get back to _him_."

"But... I don't understand."

"I know you don't," Rose said. "And I'm sorry to disappoint. But that's the way it's gotta be. Do me a favour, though? If you see three shifty-lookin' squirrels, tell them I'm lookin' for them."

The Prince stared after her in much the same way the old woman had earlier at that strange sentence. Rose left with the feeling that he'd probably look back on her leaving him in the lurch and decide that he'd actually dodged a bullet .

* * *

><p>A girl in a gown sort of like the ones Rose remembered Madame de Pompadour wearing rushed past Rose.<p>

"Wait, have you seen –" Rose called after her, but she was already out of sight. "Never mind."

Rose sighed, then noticed something on the ground. She reached down and picked up a glass slipper.

"No way," she said, turning it over in her hands, glancing after the girl.

A few seconds later, a man nearly literally ran into her. A prince, even, going by the crown that was almost identical to the one Prince Charming had worn.

"Have you seen –" the both asked each other at the same time, then stopped.

"I'm looking for a beautiful and mysterious woman," the prince said. "I think she came this way."

Rose handed over the glass shoe. "This is hers. You're gonna need it. You might wanna rethink whatever it is you learned in that Findin' a Princess class you guys all apparently took, though. There's gotta be easier ways."

The prince snatched the shoe out of Rose's hand and ran off after the girl before Rose could ask him in turn whether he'd seen her renegade squirrels.

"I'm really startin' to hate this place," Rose said.

* * *

><p>The crack of a branch underfoot was the only warning she got.<p>

Rose reeled back just in time to avoid getting whacked across the face. She looked down her nose, going slightly cross-eyed, at a frying pan.

Well, as weapons went, she supposed the Doctor had frequently used weirder. A little blunt force trauma could go a long way, after all.

Two big green eyes appeared over the edge of the slightly-rusted metal.

"Who are you?" the owner of those eyes asked her.

"You might want to watch yourself when she's swinging that thing," a man's voice suggested. "It's surprisingly lethal."

The pan was lowered slowly, revealing the rest of the face of a girl who looked just a little younger than Rose, and who was just as blond. No, Rose realised, _blonder_. That was a _lot_ of blond hair, she mused as her eyes followed the path of it all the way along to where a rakish-looking guy and a white horse were standing and beyond.

"Oh," Rose said. She laughed. "No way. You're not seriously gonna tell me you're _Rapunzel_."

The pan was instantly raised again. "How do you know my name? Who sent you? You're after my hair, aren't you?"

"Um, actually, I know it sounds pretty unbelievable, but I'm lookin' for a trio of squirrels who stole my universe-travellin' device."

The guy raised an eyebrow at her. "That's..."

"So ridiculous that it must be true, right?" Rose suggested wryly. "You haven't seen any creatures matchin' that description, have you?"

"You know," the guy said, "I wasn't really _looking_."

"Yeah, well, maybe you should," said Rose. "Watch out for those squirrels, I mean. The animals in this place all seem to be completely nuts."

"Ha, tell me about it," the man commiserated, looking sidelong at the white horse.

The horse whinnied and stomped a hoof angrily on the ground as if to prove their point.

Rose glared at the horse, and was quite annoyed to notice that it glared right back before switching to glower at the man instead. "Please don't tell me it's name is Arthur," Rose said.

"No, it's Maximus," Rapunzel said, looking puzzled. "What kind of a name is Arthur for a horse?"

Rose shook her head. "This is what I'm sayin'! How comes the people from the reality where everyone bursts into song for no reason, and horses have vendettas against people, and mile-long hair doesn't get all knotted up or even dirty, are apparently more sensible in some ways than the supposedly-genius guy I'm tryin' to get back to?"

Rapunzel bit her lower lip. "You're trying to get back to someone you love?" she asked. "Then I want to help. Whatever we can do, right?" she said, looking questioningly at the man. He sighed but nodded.

"I dunno that there's much you can do," Rose admitted.

"At least take this," Rapunzel said, holding out the frying pan towards Rose again, though this time handle-first. "If you're going off into the forest alone, you might need this. It's very effective."

Rose took the offered handle and smiled. "Thanks."

"Also," Rapunzel said, "when it comes to those squirrels, you should try singing, or maybe whistling. Animals like that sort of thing." She leaned over and scritched the horse under the chin, which made the seemingly perpetual annoyed expression disappear off its face. "Don't you? Yes you do," she said.

The man rolled his eyes. "You know how crazy that sounds, right? Only someone who grew up isolated in a tower could possibly say or do any of that with a straight face."

Personally, Rose had to agree, but she was running low on choices.

"I'll try it," she said. "Thanks for your help."

"You know," the man said, his voice growing softer as the two of them walked away, "it's a pity that hair of yours can't heal emotional problems. Everyone around here has some serious issues."

Rose snorted. He wasn't wrong there.

"After a reluctant Rapunzel is led away by her dashing thief, our heroine decides to put aside her pride for the greater good," a voice announced not long after their footsteps had completely receded.

"No, don't start that narratin' thing again," Rose called out. Bad enough that she was actually considering this; she didn't need some 'helpful' voiceover announcing it to everyone and everything in earshot.

She'd seen this sort of thing before on a Disney movie or three, but it would never have occurred to Rose that she could do it herself, or that there was a chance in hell of it actually working. She looked around to make sure no one was there to see her make a fool of herself. Then she whistled something of a tune.

Numerous little animal heads popped out curiously from their hiding places. Rose kept up the jaunty tune she was whistling, and they began to gather around her as if she was some kind of pied piper. Low and behold, the squirrels also came to check her out, dragging the wrist device in their wake.

Rose inched towards them, still whistling. When she lunged, this time it was the squirrels who weren't fast enough.

"Ha ha!" Rose shouted, brandishing the device high in the air to proclaim her success to... a bunch of animals and trees. Right. Somewhat chastened, Rose lowered the device and snapped it onto her wrist, this time making sure it was strapped on firmly. She was seriously considering welding the damn thing on, after all this, actually.

It was taking her long enough to get back to the Doctor without unnecessary detours like this.

* * *

><p>Rose hit the button and the Dimension Cannon jumped her from that strange animated universe to a new one where everything looked gloriously <em>real<em>. But she could barely believe it _was_ real, actually, because she was completely stunned to find the Doctor right there, standing just five feet away from her, like some kind of reward for her struggles across all those universes, especially that last one.

They gaped at each other for several moments, disbelieving.

In the end, thankfully, it turned out that the only part of the Doctor that was animated was the broad smile that took over his face, and that was more real than anything.

He swept her up into his arms and, clearly too caught up in the moment to care about those consequences he'd always been so worried about, he kissed her.

Of course, it being the Doctor, Rose should have probably expected it when he pulled back almost immediately with a strange expression on his face.

"Rose," he said, "tell me you haven't been eating _pears_?"

Rose thought, in retrospect, that maybe Prince Charming's terrible attempts to woo her after kissing her might not be quite so bad after all.

~FIN~


End file.
